Angelina Jolie Tried Exotic Accents For ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Role

CANNES, France — The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival, a.k.a. the world’s most glamorous film fete, tends to attract the biggest and brightest stars working in the business. On Tuesday, we had the pleasure of chatting with “Puss in Boots” stars
Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, and on Wednesday (May 11), we caught up with “Kung Fu Panda 2″ A-listers Jack Black and Angelina Jolie.

During a brief sit-down with the funnyman and his leading lady, MTV News asked Jolie to let us in on the secrets behind her audition for the animated flick, specifically addressing a rumor that she spoke in a variety of voices and accents in an effort to get the job.

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“I did, I did,” Jolie confirmed. “I’ve never loved my own voice. Like most people, you hear your own voice and you think, ‘Ugh.’ So I came in and I was Mae West for a while,” she said of the saucy screen legend. “I was doing southern, I was doing British, I was doing any accent I could come up with. Finally, they had to give me the talking-to that they’d analyzed my voice and they’d hired me and they were very fine with my [natural voice], ‘So please just stop doing those horrible voices,’ ” she recalled with a laugh.

In the “Kung Fu Panda” sequel, Jolie reprises her role as the feisty fighter Tigress, alongside Dragon Warrior Po (Black). The “awesome” world of the fighters is threatened by the emergence of a new villain who plans to conquer China and destroy kung fu with a secret, unstoppable weapon. Naturally, Po, Tigress and the rest of the Furious Five must spring to action to prevent that from happening.

Stick with MTV News all week for all of the scoop from the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.